Could The Rematch Between Pacquiao vs Bradley Be Fixed?

On Saturday, from the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, the most anticipating boxing rematch will have arrived. The build up to the fight between Manny Pacquiao vs Timothy Bradley 2 has been the ability to Bradley to convincingly defeat Pacquiao. Could Bradley score a decisive victory over Pacquiao? Does Pacquiao still has the killer instinct that made him famous? Will Pacquiao knock out Bradley? Saturday carries a lot of questions for the two boxers but for fans there weighs certain level of suspicions.

Could it be that Pacquiao vs Bradley 2 is a fixed fight? Could it be that this fight was made because the first fight was fixed? Controversy sells. Curiosity sells. The first fight created a huge controversy. How can the best boxer be robbed? Easy. If you are a promoter and you realize that your best boxer has a small pool of opponents you find a way to make that pool larger. So a possible scenario is to fix a fight so that it creates controversy. Let it pass couple of years and hope that the other opponent gets better and then stage a rematch where the stock of that fight creates buzz and people purchase the fight so that they will no longer be curious and witness for themselves who won the first fight. If you are one of the several boxing fans that think like this then you are not alone. Welcome to a promoters way of thinking.

One of the reasons why I think Pacquiao vs Bradley 2 maybe fixed is for couple of reasons. For Pacquiao’s case, he needs to win convincingly to maintain his stock up. A decisive victory and especially a knock out over Bradley will put Pacquiao on the sweepstakes vs Mayweather again. As long as Pac is promoted by Top Rank that fight will never happen. A Pac victory will start circulating interest in a possible Marquez 5 fight but Marquez will not take it. A Pacquiao win in a very close decision such as a split decision is good for Top Rank because it can start selling the Pacquiao vs Bradley Trilogy.

For Bradley’s case, a convincing victory calls an end to the Pacquiao era and puts Bradley as Top Rank’s new cash cow. A very close victory then fans can start thinking of a Pacquiao vs Bradley 3 fight.

If Pacquiao wins, who does he fight next? Marquez? Don’t think so. Provodnikov? Roach won’t let it happen. Mikey Garcia? He still is 2-3 fights away. Maybe Alvarado as a tune up even if he ends up losing to Marquez. So as we can see, the pool to fight Pacquiao is very small. Given this scenario Top Rank understands that this fight has to have another controversy. Maybe not as bad as the first one but needs one of the fighters to win a very close decision, maybe another split decision, for it to be thinking of staging the Manny Pacquiao vs Timothy Bradley 3.

I don’t like to think that boxing fights are not fixed. But, with recent fights such as Canelo vs Angulo not going the way fans had expected makes one only think certain fights are done to protect certain fighters.

The first round plays a big role into deciding if a fight is fixed. One can tell. But it becomes more obvious in the first 4 rounds. If we see Bradley not moving as fast as he did against Marquez or boxing Pacquaio and using different angles to neutralize Manny’s speed then something is up. If Bradley decides to go Toe to Toe with Pacquiao that is a clear sign to me that Bradley is part of the plan. Boxing fans know and Julio Diaz knows that the way to beat Pacquiao is to not engage in a Toe to Toe battle. In other words, Bradley will not go to war with Pacquiao if he wants to win this fight. Bradley will need to outbox Manny if he wants to make a statement and show the world that his first victory over Manny was not a gift.

Some fans may be boycotting the fight so that Bob Arum won’t make millions and others may simply watch it at a sports bar to not spend $60 for one fight. But, for those who will end up watching the fight, it will be interesting to see how the first couple of rounds play out. Let’s hope that it is a very clean and fair fight. If it goes to the score cards, let’s hope we have great judges that are scoring the fight in a very just manner.